Video: "Keeper of the Flame"

Georgie came across a video of this 1942 Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy vehicle in the library collection and brought it home out of curiousity. Neither of us had ever heard of it.

Hepburn plays the recent widow of an American hero and industrialist, "George Forrest," who has been killed in an automobile accident. Tracy plays a crusading journalist who is intent on writing a biography of the "great man," and is puzzled by the resistance he initially receives. Eventually, he works his way into a romance with Hepburn's character, and then into the heart of the dead man's dark and dangerous secrets.

Unfortunately, although directed by the famous George Cukor, the movie's pacing is dull and dramatic tension levels low. It's not either Hepburn or Tracy's best acting. In fact, I found the most interesting character to be Tracy's sometime colleague, wisecracking newspaperwoman Jane Harding (Audrey Christie), and much of the other interest was in picking out and identifying the young images of well-known character actors such as Ward Bond, Howard Da Silva, and Percy Kilbride.

Given the 1942 release date, it's understandable that the movie got made, as the dangers of "creeping Fascism" are a major plot element, and the cynical media manipulations planned by the bad guys are still rather fresh in these days. Nevertheless, for fans of Hepburn and Tracy, their comedies are far better.